Man's Best Friend
by coyotekat
Summary: Dumbledore asks Professor Snape for a small favor, just looking after a dog for a few weeks. Snape is not a dog person, but a mischievous dog may be able to soften even the hardest heart.
1. A Small Favor

"Please, Severus, I'm just asking a small favor. I need your help," Albus Dumbledore begged. He tried a winning smile on the scowling man in front of him.

"Absolutely not, I will not do it," Severus Snape insisted. "Surely there is someone more suitable you can con into watching the beast."

"There is a possibility that the dog has been inadvertently exposed to several potions. It will require your particular expertise to monitor her for ill effects."

"Why is this one mangy cur so important? Is it some sort of magical beast?" Severus found the Headmaster's story suspicious, but he knew he would not get any more information out of the man than he had already decided to provide.

"No, no, it is a completely ordinary dog. But an important one none the less. Please, Severus. I just need you to look after her for a little while. I want her to be a gift to someone very important to me once I am sure she is well."

"I don't even like dogs – they are in general loud, destructive, and filthy with no obvious redeeming qualities. I cannot begin to comprehend why anyone would keep one as a pet."

"I'm not asking you to keep her as a pet, just feed her and walk her for a couple weeks. You will hardly even notice she's there. She's very quiet."

Severus sighed. He had known from the beginning he would end up taking the dog. There was no way he could refuse Albus anything, no matter how miserable it made him. His pride had not allowed him to give in without a fight, but it was time to accept the inevitable. "All right, I will watch the creature, but not for long. This is a strictly temporary arrangement." He did not hesitate to use his sternest glare on the Headmaster.

"Of course, Severus, just a couple weeks, I promise," Albus answered. "Her name is Yoti, like a coyote; I think the two of you will get on splendidly."

Severus did not trust the Headmaster's twinkling smile for a moment.

xxxXXXxxx

Severus' quiet evening was interrupted by the arrival of the dog in his quarters. Dumbledore brought the dog through the Floo along with a large plastic tub. "Here she is, Severus, sorry I can't stay. Her things are in the tub," Dumbledore said, and disappeared back through the Floo before Severus could speak a word.

Severus simply stared at the dog, not yet quite resigned to taking responsibility for its welfare, and the creature stared back. He thought for a moment that he would never have turned his loyalty from the Dark Lord, had he known it would lead to this.

Severus took out his wand and performed a thorough scan of the animal. It seemed to be a perfectly ordinary dog with no magical properties. "Dumbledore truly has gone mad at last," he said to the dog. "He could not have found anyone less amenable to looking after his dog if he tried."

The dog wagged its tail and offered him a doggy grin. Severus took a moment to study the animal in front of him. Admittedly, he didn't know much about dogs, but this creature didn't appear to be any sort of purebred. It was of a medium size, tan with a darker black patch covering its back. It's most striking feature was its massive ears sticking up from the top of its head like antennae, the left one with a slight kink in the tip. Its golden eyes were bright, its snout long and pointed. Severus had visited the library that afternoon to look up what a coyote was, and he could certainly see a resemblance. The creature was lean and athletic looking. Undoubtedly, it would require a good deal of exercise.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Severus asked the animal. The dog continued to grin at him. Severus examine the tub that had arrived with the dog. It contained a bag of dog food, several dishes, and a couple of plastic and rawhide bones. "I suppose I should provide you with some supper, shouldn't I?" He read the instructions on the side of the dog food package, estimated the dog's weight, and scooped out the recommended amount of food into one of the dishes. He used a simple _Aguamenti_ charm to fill the second dish with water.

The dog watched his actions alertly but made no move to approach the dishes. "Go on, eat, you foolish creature," Severus snapped, making the dog flinch away from him. He sighed and stepped back from the dishes. "Eat your supper, dog," he said more softly, trying not to scare the animal.

Once Severus had moved away from the food, the dog cautiously approached, keeping one eye on Severus as it sniffed suspiciously at the food bowl. The creature apparently decided the food was acceptable, and wolfed it down in a matter of minutes. The animal then lapped noisily at the bowl of water, splashing more and more water on the surrounding floor with every flick of its pink tongue.

"Your table manners are atrocious," he told the dog with a frown. "I suppose I will have to take you outside now." The dog just smiled, dripping more water from its muzzle as it moved away from the bowl back towards the fireplace.

The animal was wearing a dark leather collar with the word 'Yoti' on it in silver, but there was no leash provided in the supply tub. Severus pointed an admonishing finger at the dog and said, "I am going to take you outside now. I swear I will hex you into next week if you attempt to run off." The dog just grinned and wagged its tail again, giving no sign that it understood his words.

"Now I'm the one losing my mind, talking to this filthy mutt as if it could understand me," Severus said, silently cursing Albus Dumbledore for doing this to him. He walked to the door and turned to see the dog still watching him from its spot beside the fireplace. "Yoti." It was almost painful to acknowledge the creature by its name. "Come on, let's go." The dog seemed to understand this and trotted over to the door, then followed at his heel as he led it up from the dungeons and out onto the grounds. Thankfully, it was late enough in the evening that they did not encounter any students in the halls.

The dog did its business – Severus vanished the mess with a flick of his wand – but it was not inclined to head back into the castle immediately. Instead, the animal seemed to be enjoying the outdoors and pranced about with its head high and its tail raised like a flag. It – she, the dog was female and he would have to stop thinking of her as an it – picked up a stick from the ground and carried it over to him. Severus just looked at her, eyebrows raised. "I agreed to feed you and walk you, but I will not stoop to playing _fetch_ with you," he told the animal.

The dog accepted this statement and didn't seem to require his participation. She tossed her head, shaking the stick in her mouth violently, and growled playfully. Then she began to run and leap in circles around him, tossing the stick in the air and then pouncing on it when it landed. Severus watched stone-faced, refusing to acknowledge the dog's antics.

Eventually, she tired of the game and followed him meekly back to his rooms in the dungeons. "I have papers to grade," Severus told her, "and I will not tolerate you disturbing me, do you understand?" It was disconcerting to him that he was so quickly falling into the habit of speaking to the dog. He found a hard plastic bone covered in tooth gouges in the tub of supplies and handed it to the dog. Although it looked completely unappealing to him, she seemed pleased with it and carried it off to the rug in front of the fire, where she laid down and began chewing contentedly on the bone.

An hour later, Severus was ready to go to bed, and he again found himself addressing the dog. "I suppose you will have to sleep in my bedroom. I cannot leave you out here unsupervised with my books and papers. But do not think for a moment you are going to be sleeping on the bed." His glare seemed to have no effect on the dog. He conjured a soft fluffy dog bed on the floor beside his own bed and watched in satisfaction as the dog climbed into it, spun three circles, and plopped herself down with a grunt. "I see we understand each other," Severus said, and shut off the lights.

xxxXXXxxx

When Severus awoke the next morning he found the dog curled in a tight ball on the foot of his bed. He glared fiercely at her. "You have your own bed, dog, and I can Stick you to it next time if you need help staying in it," Severus growled. The dog's calm eyes met his and her tail thumped softly against his leg.

They were up early enough to avoid running into any students on their way outside, but the dog again wanted to frolic and play in the fresh air. She sprinted circles around him, dropping periodically into a play bow before yipping at him and taking off in the opposite direction. By the time the dog was panting and willing to follow him inside, the students were drifting into the Great Hall for breakfast. They stared in fascinated disbelief at the cheerful mutt trotting beside their fearsome Potions Master, but of course it was only Potter who couldn't keep his fool mouth shut. "Is that your dog, Professor?" the boy asked.

Severus almost snapped at the boy that of course it was his dog, who else's dog would he be walking at the crack of dawn, but instead he said, "The creature is a temporary inconvenience. Kindly mind your own business, Mr. Potter, before I am forced to take points for nosiness." To his disgust, the dog responded to Potter's interest by leaping on the boy, slamming her paws into his chest and swiping her tongue across his face. Severus was even more incensed when the boy just laughed and scratched the dog behind her ears.

"Aren't you a nice dog, such a pretty thing," Potter crooned to the animal.

"Potter! Get your filthy hands off my dog this instant!"

The boy jumped back as if the dog had suddenly caught fire. "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir," Potter mumbled and then nearly ran away towards the Great Hall.

Severus called the dog away and stormed off to his rooms, where he addressed the dog sternly. "You displayed appallingly disgraceful behavior this morning," he said. Rather than its usual grin, the dog looked almost guilty. Was it even possible for a dog to feel guilt? "I expect a bit more appreciation from you while I am allowing you to live in my home, and that means no cozying up to _Potter_ of all people." The dog looked suitably chastened, so Severus gave her some food and then left her in his sitting room with strict instructions not to touch anything but her own things while he was at breakfast.

In the Great Hall, Albus gave him an annoyingly cheerful smile, his eyes twinkling more than ever. "Where is your new friend this morning, Severus? I thought she would want to accompany you to breakfast."

"What the animal wants is not my concern, Albus. It would be unsanitary to bring her to meals," Severus replied shortly. "She is waiting in my quarters and hopefully not doing irreparable damage to my possessions while unsupervised. If you have so much time to worry about her whereabouts surely you have time to take over her care yourself. I have not noticed any signs of poisoning so far."

"Oh no, my boy, I am far too busy. I am, er, going away for a few days, er, right after breakfast."

When Severus returned to his rooms following breakfast, he found Yoti stretched out on the floor beside his desk surrounded by piles of shredded paper. The dog looked up, startled, when Severus came into the room. When she offered him her trademark grin, a bit of paper fell from her mouth. Her wagging tail sent a cloud of paper scraps scattering through the air.

Severus stood a moment in stunned disbelief, and then he exploded in fury. "What the hell have you done you obnoxious beast?" he yelled. "How dare you touch my papers?" He stormed forward to snatch up some of the scraps of paper. He recognized bits of the essay he had been planning to hand back to his third year students that day. Now it seemed the entire stack had been destroyed. "You are the worst dog in the world! What am I supposed to tell the students when I don't have any essays to hand back?"

He was still screaming and he realized that the dog had retreated to cower under his desk. She let out a whimper and Severus suddenly felt like the world's biggest jerk. What kind of monster lost his temper with a dog? She clearly didn't have a clue what she had done wrong, and yet here he was screaming at her while she recoiled in terror. He took a certain pleasure in terrifying his students, but a dog was a different matter entirely. Severus finally remembered that he was a wizard and used a _Reparo_ on the shredded papers, but most of reassembled essays had chunks missing, likely where the creature had ingested bits of the paper.

Severus collapsed on the couch. He spoke softly, not looking at the dog. "I did not really mean that," he said. "I know you didn't mean to do anything wrong. You probably are not truly the worst dog in the world."

Severus sat staring into the distance with unfocused eyes. He was clearly not capable of taking care of a dog and he cursed Albus again for forcing him into this situation. Without warning, a soft nose bumped against his knee, and then a pointed snout wormed its way under his hands on his lap until he was forced to stroke the top of her soft head. His long fingers gently rubbed the dog's soft ears, and there was a lump in his throat as he contemplated the forgiving nature of dogs.

"I suppose I can simply inform the students that their work was so atrocious I was forced to incinerate it. I can make them do the assignment over again, with an extra foot on how putting in such an abysmal effort shows their disrespect for those of us wasting our time trying to educate the brats." Severus was almost smiling now, warming to the idea. Those essays had come from Potter's class, and he was almost grateful to the dog for providing the opportunity to ridicule Potter. And imagine how upset the Granger girl would be to have her work condemned with the rest of them. It would be a joy to behold. Of course, his Slytherins would have to be included too – their essays were just as hopelessly damaged as the rest – but even they could stand to be put in their place from time to time.


	2. Mischief

Yoti accompanied Severus to his classes for the rest of the day. He knew now that she could not be unsupervised in his rooms but he did not like the idea of locking her in a cage. He told her firmly that she had to stay in her spot under his desk during classes, since his moronic students might spill something dangerous on her if she wandered among them while they were brewing. Of course, Severus didn't delude himself that the dog understood him, but she seemed content to stay under the desk with a rawhide bone for the rest of the morning.

At lunchtime, the pair of them took another trip outside. This time, when Yoti brought him a stick he took it from her and threw it, giving it a little magical push to make it fly further. If dogs were anything like children, then keeping her busy with approved activities would be the best way to prevent her from getting into mischief. The dog was grinning and panting happily by the time they finished, and she spent the rest of the afternoon passed out under his desk.

Severus reluctantly decided to bring the dog to meals in the Great Hall, despite what he had told Dumbledore about it being unsanitary. If the owls could be allowed to trample all over the tables during mail delivery, one dog couldn't possibly do too much harm. Severus found he didn't have to worry about the dog straying too far from his seat, since she preferred to sit by his chair with her hopeful eyes fixed on his food as he ate. It was actually a little uncomfortable to eat in front of such an intent audience.

The first time Yoti encountered Lupin in the Great Hall, she growled at the werewolf with her ears laid back and her hackles raised. Severus told her, "Good dog," and patted her on the head. She probably just sensed something different about the werewolf that made her nervous, but it was nice that the dog was taking his side against his enemies.

That night, Yoti waited until he shut off his light before she climbed up on the bed. She stumbled through several clumsy circles in the soft blankets before plopping down on the far corner of the bed. Well, the dog wasn't actually disturbing him so where was the harm in letting her stay?

When Severus woke the next morning, he found Yoti had stretched out in the night so she was pressed against his calf with her chin resting lightly on his knee. She opened her golden eyes and gave a few soft thumps of her tail in greeting. "You are getting entirely too comfortable here, dog," he said with a frown, but he found he wasn't truly upset. It was almost nice to have someone around who wasn't afraid of him, even after being exposed to his temper.

xxxXXXxxx

The dog went everywhere with Severus over the next several days. The students still stared, but they quickly grew accustomed to seeing the dog bounding into the Potions classroom ahead of her master and prancing alongside him on the way to meals in the Great Hall. Severus was very careful to keep his papers out of Yoti's reach so there would be no further destruction of the students' work. He did, however, very much enjoy berating the third year classes for their 'unacceptable' work on the destroyed essays and assigning them the new, longer rewrite. The indignation on the Granger girl's face was priceless. When he met the dog's eyes as she lay in her spot under his desk, it felt as if they were sharing a private joke.

The rest of the week was not without incident, however. The dog was given to mischief and would not stand for being ignored for too long. Wednesday evening, when Severus had been grading papers for several hours, the dog came up beside his chair and stood looking at him. When he glanced at her, she wagged her tail so that it thumped against his desk. He turned back to his work, but the dog stayed there staring at him. When he looked at her again, she wagged her tail and gave a soft growl. Severus again turned back to his work, and she poked him hard in the leg with her pointed snout.

"What do you want, dog? I really have no idea what you're asking for and it is very irritating."

Yoti turned and wandered away. A moment later, she was back at his side, thumping her tail against the desk. When Severus looked at her, she cocked her head sideways and stared back at him with one of his black socks dangling from her mouth.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing with that? I don't recall giving you permission to chew on my personal possessions." Severus reached for the sock. The dog allowed him to grab one end of it, then pulled back against him, clearly inviting him into a game of tug. "My sock is not a tug toy, you wretched brat," but he spoke with a distinct lack of venom in his voice.

There was nothing appropriate for a game of tug amongst the dog's belongings, so Severus sighed and transfigured the sock into a bit of knotted rope. The dog gleefully latched onto the other end of the rope and began to tug, growling playfully through her clenched teeth. Severus, not wishing to waste time on the silly game, enchanted his end of the rope to tug back against the dog on its own.

As soon as he stepped away, the dog stopped playing, clearly confused, and refused to tug until Severus grabbed hold of his end of the rope again. So he set aside the indignity of it all and played tug with the dog. He even laughed the first time she 'won' the rope away from him and shook it violently, as if it was putting up a fight. As soon as she finished shaking it into submission, she trotted back up to him and bumped his end of the rope against his hand, inviting him to play again. Severus could admit in the privacy of his own thoughts that the dog's antics were amusing. And there was something almost endearing about her face with those giant upright ears so out of proportion with the rest of her head.

xxxXXXxxx

The next evening, when they were coming in from their last walk of the night, Yoti suddenly took off up the staircase to the next floor of the castle. She had been reliable about staying with him, so he had never put her on any kind of leash, physical or magical. He regretted that now as the dog disappeared into the dark corridors at the top of the stairs.

"Come back here! Yoti! Where are you going, dog?" Severus took off running up the stairs after the dog. She was waiting there at the far end of the corridor, but as soon as she saw him, she took off again down another hallway. Severus gave chase, and again Yoti waited until he could see her before taking off down another dark corridor. "This isn't a game, you brat. Come back here, right now!" It took ten minutes of chasing the infernal beast up and down the corridors before Severus stopped, winded, and realized what an idiot he was being.

"What is it about you that makes me act as moronic as a first year?" he asked the dog.

She stood grinning at him from the end of the corridor in front of him, tail waving playfully. Severus pulled out his wand and before the dog could react he conjured walls to either side of her, cutting off her escape routes. As he approached the dog, smirking, she suddenly darted forward and slipped by his knee as Severus lunged but failed to grab her.

When he caught up to her again a minute later, he said, "I'm not falling for that again, you brat." This time, he conjured a bubble around them so every possible escape route was cut off. As he closed in on the dog, she seemed to accept that the game was done and trotted right up to him, still grinning. She sat patiently in front of him as he transfigured his belt into a leash and clipped it onto her collar.

"You are lucky that you didn't pull that stunt in front of the students or I would be very upset with you right now," he told the dog in a lightly scolding tone. So far, she had behaved well in front of the students and he hoped she was smart enough to save her mischievous behavior for times when there were no witnesses.

xxxXXXxxx

On the weekend, Severus decided the dog deserved a longer outing than she had been getting during the week, so on Saturday he took her out for a long walk. As he walked, she amused herself chasing after birds until they flew out of reach. She liked to stop to sniff at things in the bushes while he walked on, and then she would sprint past him before turning back to grin at him.

At one point, Yoti took off after a rabbit. Severus could hear her crashing through the brush, yipping excitedly, but she ignored all his commands to come back. The sound faded as she moved further away, and Severus began to worry. What the hell would he tell Dumbledore if he lost the dog?

Ten minutes later, the dog came back panting hard with her tongue lolling out of her mouth. She was covered from her toes to the tips of her abnormally large ears in thick black mud. There was a dried leaf stuck to the mud on top of her head like a jaunty hat.

"What were you doing in there, Yoti?" He was too relieved to be angry with the dog for running off. "I almost wish you could talk so I could ask you what the hell you were thinking." When the mud and leaves fell away with a simple charm, Severus thought he had never been more thankful to be a wizard. He didn't even want to imagine the horrors of trying to give the animal a bath.

As they walked back up to the castle, Severus realized they had been out for more than three hours. He didn't think he had ever gone for such a long walk in his life, and he was surprised to find he had actually enjoyed himself.

xxxXXXxxx

On Monday, Severus was determined to find an opportunity to speak to Dumbledore. He had been watching the dog for almost a week now, and it was abundantly clear that the Headmaster had stretched the truth to convince Severus to take her. She was ready to go to her new home, wherever that may be. She was ready, that is, until Potions class that morning took a dramatic turn for the worse.

Yoti had fallen easily into the habit of staying under Severus's desk during class, either sleeping or chewing on one of her bones. That morning, a mouse darting across the classroom caught the attention of the dozing dog. She took off like a shot, chasing the mouse as it ran amongst the rows of students at their cauldrons. Students screamed and jumped away from the mouse and the dog, crashing into each other in the process. As Severus lunged for the dog, she made a desperate dive towards the mouse, scrambling on the slippery stone floor. Several students were knocked off balance, colliding with their bubbling cauldrons and sending the cauldrons crashing to the floor. There was a huge bang and a blinding flash of light. Severus heard the dog yelp and then the room fell deathly still.

When the haze cleared, Yoti was lying unconscious beside Severus on the floor, both of them covered in the mingled contents of four spilled cauldrons.


	3. An Unexpected Development

By the time Yoti came to, Severus had dismissed the students, all uninjured, and cleaned up the mess in the potions classroom. He had also nearly worn a track into the floor as he paced in front of the couch where he had laid the dog. So far, the spilled potions hadn't had any effect on him, but he wasn't sure what effect they might have had on the dog.

Yoti woke abruptly and said, _"Ugh, I feel awful, what happened to me?"_

Severus froze in mid step. "Well that was unexpected."

" _Wait, huh? When did you start speaking dog?"_

"You're as inarticulate as my students. And I'm not speaking 'dog,' something has happened that is allowing us to understand each other."

" _This is too weird."_ The dog was silent for a moment. _"Hey, human, there's something I've been wanting to tell you. That dry dog food you give me is awful. Don't you have anything tastier?"_

"Really, the first thing you want to say to me is a complaint about the food? You should be grateful you're getting any food. It wasn't my idea for you to stay with me, you know."

Yoti hung her head and peered at him from the corner of her eye. _"I am grateful, human, really. I've never had a real home before. I like it here."_

Severus decided to put aside the matter of the dog thinking of his rooms as home. "Since I don't think I've lost my mind in the last couple hours, we'll have to assume this is the result of your accident in the Potions classroom. Do you remember what happened this morning?"

" _I remember the mouse got away, that rat bastard."_ Yoti jumped up as if she intended to go hunt down the mouse that instant.

"I think we have more important problems right now, don't you? Several of the student's cauldrons spilled on us and I didn't have any idea what effect it might have. This makes a strange kind of sense, I suppose, since the students were working on a potion to sharpen hearing, but they were all at different stages of completion and I'm sure at least one of them had already made a monumental error. It seems they have inadvertently created a new potion." Severus felt a familiar excitement stirring in him at the thought. With enough time, he was almost sure he would be able to recreate the potion.

" _So, can we talk about the dog food situation now?"_

Then again, if that was all the dog wanted to talk about, maybe he wouldn't bother trying to replicate the potion.

xxxXXXxxx

Severus had cancelled the rest of his classes after the accident, so he had plenty of time to run every test he could think of on the dog and himself. As far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with either of them except that they could now understand one another perfectly. He took Yoti out into the halls and had her speak in front of several of the students and teachers, but nobody else seemed to hear anything. Whatever had occurred had effected only the two of them, although he wasn't completely ruling out the possibility that this was all an elaborate hallucination.

The Potions Master spent most of the afternoon in his lab testing the potion samples he had collected after the accident. He completely lost track of time and had been engrossed in the work for hours when Yoti spoke from the doorway.

" _Human? Hey, hey, human?"_

"What?" He snapped. When the dog flinched, he sighed and said more softly, "You can call me Severus. What do you want?"

" _Can we go outside, Sev'rus? You've been working in the 'you are absolutely forbidden to come in here' room all afternoon and I'm bored."_

That made Severus smile. He had told the dog several times that she was forbidden to set foot in his potions lab. "You could do a great deal of harm to the room and to yourself if you got into some of the potions I keep in here," Severus answered sternly. "And yes, I suppose it is past time for you to have a trip outside."

When they got outside, Yoti said, _"Sev'rus-human? The stick game is fun, but do you have anything else I can play with?"_

Severus thought for a minute and then took out his wand. He took a leaf from the ground and transfigured it to look like a small bird. It was still light as a leaf and he used his wand to send it zooming and fluttering across the grounds. The dog yipped with glee and gave chase, running and leaping after the 'bird' as it danced out of reach. _"Oh, oh I'm gonna get you, you filthy bird, you just wait 'til I get my teeth on you,"_ Yoti growled, and Severus almost laughed.

When the dog finally caught the 'bird' it transfigured back, leaving the surprised dog with a leaf clenched in her teeth. After a moment, she dropped the leaf and grinned her doggy grin. _"That was so fun, Sev'rus, please, please do it again?"_ And so he made the bird appear again and sent it flying off across the grounds. It was Sunday and Severus noticed now that several groups of students were outside watching the dog's antics, but he just glared at them and let the dog play until she was exhausted.

Now that Yoti had had her exercise, Severus decided to see if the dog was willing to talk about something other than dog food. "What did you mean earlier when you said you had never had a real home? Where did Dumbledore find you then?"

" _Is he the twinkly man with the long beard?"_ Severus smirked at the dog's description. _"I was living in a cage, in a place with lots of other dogs in cages, when the twinkly man came and brought me here. I used to live outside before some humans caught me and took me to the cage place."_

"What about when you lived outside, did you have people to look after you?"

" _I lived at a place with lots of cows and horses and chickens and the humans there fed me the nasty dog food and let me sleep under a shed. But the humans got upset with me for killing the chickens and they let the cage-men take me away."_

"Did the people you lived with before do magic? Did they have wands?"

" _What's a wand?"_ Severus pulled his out and showed it to the dog. _"Oh, your glowy stick. No, I hadn't seen one of those until I came here."_

So Yoti had lived on a farm and then in an animal shelter, where Dumbledore had found her and brought her to Hogwarts. There was nothing in the dog's history about any potions and Severus was sure now that Dumbledore's story had been a lie. But what the Headmaster had been thinking to pluck this dog out of a shelter and force Severus to take care of her was still a mystery to him. He was going to have to speak to the old man about it soon.

When Yoti accompanied him to dinner that evening, Severus discovered an unfortunate consequence of having a dog that knew he could understand its speech. She sat beside his chair, staring intently at every bite of food as it moved towards his mouth. _"Sev'rus. That smells really good, Sev'rus. How can you eat chicken right there in front of me? You know I love chicken, Sev'rus."_

"Stop drooling, it's disgusting," he said to the dog.

" _I can't stop, everything smells so amazing. Is that cheese, I love cheese, can I please have a bite of cheese, please?"_

"Enough! _If_ you cease hounding me this instant, you can have some cheese and chicken back in our quarters, and you _will_ eat your dog food as well. You need a balanced diet."

" _Thank you, Sev'rus-human!"_ The dog's wide grin allowed more drool to drip from her mouth.

Severus looked up to find every member of the staff staring at him in complete shock. Several of them had their mouths hanging open stupidly. He glared around the table and snapped, "What? There was an accident in Potions class that resulted in the dog and I being able to understand each other. Not that it is any of your business."

"It's nice to see the two of you getting along so well, Severus," Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling more than Severus had ever seen before.

Severus glared at the man and said, "I need to speak to you about that. Don't forget that I only agreed to keep the animal for a couple weeks." Severus knew, however, that the accident had changed things. He didn't want the dog to leave, but especially not before he finished researching the new potion.

xxxXXXxxx

When they got back to his quarters, Yoti seemed unusually subdued and didn't say anything about the chicken.

"What's wrong?" Severus asked. "Don't you want your supper?"

She hung her head and said very softly, _"Did you mean what you said to the twinkly man? That you're getting rid of me?"_

Severus didn't know what to say. It hadn't occurred to him that the dog was listening to what he said to the Headmaster, or that she would be upset by it. "Dumbledore just asked me to watch you for a couple weeks. He intends to give you to someone else. I'm sure it will be someone nice if it is a friend of the Headmaster's."

" _But I like it here with you. Do you not want me, Sev'rus-human?"_ The dog had the most pitiful look on her face that Severus had ever seen, and she let out a little whimper for good measure. He didn't feel like he was being manipulated, though. The animal was genuinely upset.

"Yoti, why would you want to stay here with me? Don't you remember the way I yelled at you? I'm not a nice person."

" _You've been very nice to me, Sev'rus. I know you didn't mean the yelling, and you play fun games and go on fun walks. And you promised me chicken. And I've never been able to talk to a human before. But I'll leave if you don't want me."_

"I … I've enjoyed having you here," he said stiffly. "I would let you stay if it were up to me, but that is the Headmaster's decision to make. He was the one who adopted you from the shelter. Technically, you belong to him."

The dog didn't pay any attention to this warning. She grinned and jumped up to lick his face. _"Thank you, Sev'rus-human. The twinkly man is nice, I'm sure he will let me stay if it will make us both happy."_

Severus was less sure. He knew Dumbledore was up to something, but what he was planning was anyone's guess. But he just pushed the dog down and went to get her the promised cheese, chicken and dog food dinner.

That night, the dog didn't hesitate to jump up on the bed and curl up against his legs. "You know, I never actually said you could sleep on the bed, Yoti," he said.

" _I thought you said you wanted me,"_ the dog said, looking at him with sad eyes.

Severus smiled at her and let her stay on the bed.


End file.
